


rainbow halo around my soul

by hes_made_of_gold (how_fickle_my_heart)



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-02-19 03:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2372498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/how_fickle_my_heart/pseuds/hes_made_of_gold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick and Wally and all the moments in between. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Otherwise unconnected Tumblr assortments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 'I've come to the conclusion that we really need to do it in a bed. At least once.'

'I've come to the conclusion that we really need to do it in a bed. At least once.'

Wally’s voice is uncomfortably loud in his ear. It jars Dick’s movements, making his legs seize up for a split second. In that pause gravity looks up and notices him flaunting the rules in a decadent triple somersault. The laws of physics take swift retribution and Dick drops onto hard concrete. Somewhere Newton is cackling.  
  
He hardly has time to collect himself before Wally’s laughter spills through the communicator into his ear.  
  
'Dude, did I just surprise you into falling?' he sounds breathless and giddy; it might be cute or even sexy if not for the humiliation Dick feels and Wally's histrionic gasps of air.  
  
'No,' he retaliates, reaffirming his statement with a flying jump onto the next building across the street. Gravity throws its hands up into the air and stalks off to commiserate with other often ignored concepts like logic and reality.  
  
'I did too!' Wally is entirely too pleased with himself.  
  
Dick cedes the argument to Wally. ‘You said something about a bed?’ The two men he’s following are surprisingly fast for their sheer scale but no match for Dick’s geographical prowess. He’s chased them into a bricked up alleyway from the rooftops and now drops down to street level, omitting a tempting flip to save gravity some torment.  
  
(Gravity is too busy sobbing into sanity’s shoulder to notice.)  
  
'Yeh. A bed. It's on my list of places and '  
  
The mens’ sudden shouts drown out part of Wally’s speech. Dick delivers a high kick to ones’ nose, knocking him backwards for a moment. The other converges on him, gun out and shaking in his palm. It gets smacked away by Dick’s boot.  
  
'it's mundane and all but I think we've filled our monthly quota of dangerous and indecent venues,' Wally continues cheerfully into his ear.  
  
'I liked the gargoyle time,' Dick says mildly, slamming one thug against the wall to knock him out.  
  
'That's because you like ridiculously high places and secretly vandalising Gotham property, babe,' Wally informs him. Dick considers retorting with 'exhibitionism kink' but gets distracted by the second man. Once he's out cold Wally has already continued.  
  
'…much more space, and this time I'm not going to be worried about thorns or plants choking me to death halfway through.' He finishes decisively.  
  
'You know I didn't hear most of that, right?' Dick enquires whilst zip tying up his would be robbers.  
  
Wally sighs, long suffering enough for Dick to know it’s at least half fake. ‘Well, I supposed I could give you a practical demonstration,’ he drawls. Dick has to suppress a laugh.  
  
'Can't you wait for Nightwing to get off of patrol first?'  
  
Even as he says so Dick swings back up onto the rooftops towards the bridge. He’s not rushing patrol, he reasons to himself, he’s just picking up the pace. The sun is just peaking over the horizon anyway and the Red Hood will be out soon enough. Just the threat of Jason is usually enough to hold the peace this side of the river past sunrise.  
  
'Can't Nightwing patrol in my pants?' Wally mutters with faux petulance. Dick has to snort at that.  
  
'Not with that attitude,' he chides in a singsong voice. There's a swish of fabric on the other end of the line, making him pause and frown. 'Are you in my bed?'  
  
There’s a moment of silence. ‘Maaaaaaybe,’ Wally wheedles.  
  
He glances around at the streets below him: deserted, but not eerily so. Just the habit of sensible, mostly law abiding Gotham residents.  
  
'I’ll be there in ten,' Dick says with a grin.

 


	2. You don't stop living just because they did.

‘You don’t stop living just because they did.’

The sheets bunched slightly as Wally slide onto the mattress, folding up around his legs. In the cool predawn air his hair was cast russet and his eyes hard. He sat with intent, not perched or hovering. His gaze was steady on Dick’s face. The hand, when it settled on Dick’s ankle, was heavy and sure. Wally’s presence was a welcome reprieve from the delicacy and phantom touches he had recently been graced with.

Now, when his fingers curled around Dick’s ankle he could feel them grounding him, making him real once more. It was like Wally could chase away the grey lingering at the edges of his vision that polluted his reality.

‘I haven’t stopped doing anything,’ he replied eventually. Crime didn’t take a holiday because he miscalculated a swing and two kids died and neither did he.

‘You’ve stopped being Dick,’ Wally countered softly. ‘You’ve stopped smiling.’ There was an edge of accusation in that, imagined or not, and Dick felt a little anger bubble up in his chest.

‘How would you know? You only just got back.’ Fighting with Wally always left a sick taste in his mouth, but it was an improvement on the stale sensation that had made a home under his skin these last few weeks.

Wally didn’t rise to the bait for once. ‘I know you.’ He knocked shoulders with Dick, an attempt to revive some comradery and life into the conversation. ‘I know how you handle stuff. You fade away and think that none of us are going to say anything about it.’

‘I don’t feel guilty,’ Dick felt the need to clarify.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Wally shrugged as if expecting his response.

‘I keep remembering it,’ he said. The memory played out at every turn. It wasn’t an obsessive behaviour; he wasn’t trying to find his mistake or thinking about _what if._ It was like a scene in a movie that affected you particularly: you kept thinking about it, wondering why it seemed so special. ‘I can’t work out why.’ He’d been a Robin, years ago; he was no stranger to bodies and not being everyone’s hero.

‘They fell from your rope. You live for your acrobatics, but you’ve gotta admit that the idea of becoming a red splatter on the ground freaks you out.’

He’d seen them fall. Just like his parents, he’d seen their skulls crack open and heard the snap of bone giving way to concrete.

‘Trust you to figure out what I couldn’t,’ Dick said, pulling his lips up consciously into a smile. It wasn’t real just yet but he could feel the blankness starting to shrink back from the edges of his chest. ‘Thanks.’

Wally chuckled, eyes bright. ‘Wait until you see this.’ From his hoodie pocket he pulled out a pair of chocolate bars emblazoned with the jaws of a lion and waved them in Dick’s face.

Dick could feel his smile grow into something more genuine. ‘Lion bars.’

‘Guess who swung by England on the way home?’ Wally crowed. ‘Wally West: chocolate bar connoisseur and occasional therapist!’

Dick winced at his butchered French and bit into the bar. He didn’t subscribe to the Wally West school of thought in which food magically fixed everything, but it was a good start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Birdflash gathering place for my Tumblr prompts.
> 
>  
> 
> [cherryflamed](http://cherryflamed.tumblr.com/)


	3. crash landed in a Louisiana swamp

_Of course_ they take a commercial plane. If Wally focuses on it he can recall talk of budget cuts and normalisation and unobtrusiveness, even if all three of those principles are utterly undermined by their group dynamics. Wally’s eating habits, M’gann’s general fascination with earth culture and Superboy passing for a MMA fighter all coalesce into a giant neon sign screaming ‘WE’RE TEEN SUPERHEROS SHH DON’T TELL’. Aqualad, the designated adult of the group, seems to have ceded any attempt at control hours ago and is now mostly focused on dealing with collateral (two stewardesses and one discussion with Conner about social conduct on public transport already, and they’re not even three hours into the flight.)  

Wally knows the tangent he’s on is only a distraction, and a poor one at that. His brain moves too fast for self-deception and sometimes it _sucks_. The plane seatbelt pulls against his jeans as he shifts in the seat (and how, exactly, can this be keeping people safe? Wally knows physics, he knows enough of Newton to explain that wearing one in a car increases the time of impact and thus lessens the force experienced, but this tiny piece of fabric and metal buckle does not invite his trust. It will do nothing but restrain him as they plummet to their fiery depths).

The air inside the airplane smells stale and scratches at his throat. He can feel the pressurisation of the cabin making him sick. It’s stupid, of course, because the pressurized air is actually saving them from the worse effects of hypoxia and in theory he’s quite happy not dying of oxygen depletion. It’s just – Wally can’t get over the idea that he’s _stuck_ here.    

He can run over land faster than the speed of sound. Crossing an ocean isn’t too hard as long as he doesn’t trip. But planes…planes fly. And if they something goes wrong there isn’t anywhere _to_ run. He might be fast but he’s mostly human, and that means having a mass that doesn’t allow for support in a gas.

He’ll die in a pathetically human manner.

Beside him Dick shifts a little, pressing his toes into Wally’s thigh. The boy is curled up against the plane wall, having been graciously allowed the window seat by Wally. He’s got some fancy headphones on that probably cost more than the contents of Wally’s suitcase and a book against his drawn up knees. Wally is just a little envious of the way he’s curled up: partly because it makes him look good, and partly because Wally really wants to emulate it. There’s still a basic instinct to porcupine in moments of weakness that’s instilled deep within his subconscious.

‘Don’t worry,’ Robin says, softly enough that no one should hear it over the static lull of the plane and their own conversations. It’s not comforting.

‘It isn’t exactly logical,’ Wally grits out. He isn’t going to verbally acknowledge that his hands have been shaking since they took off. Nope, absolutely not. Denial all the way. There’s a bit of him that thinks that if he doesn’t say it, it won’t be real.

Dick pauses, watching Wally’s face as he turns through options in his head. ‘The same thing would happen to me if something went wrong,’ he goes with eventually. Wally snorts despite himself, momentarily jolted out of his fear.

‘Like you’re going to let a plane crash kill you. Come on Rob, you’ll pull some bat move and magically survive without even a papercut.’ It’s true. Wally can’t imagine a situation Dick can’t escape.

‘I’ll –‘ he cuts off, pauses for less than most humans would notice, and continues, ‘take you with me. On the magical bat quest that saves us from getting smushed. It’ll be great; I’ll let you be the hero.’

How in the world that nonsensical plan comforts Wally is a mystery. Perhaps it isn’t, though, because he’s always had an issue with trusting Dick over other things. He trusts in Dick’s crazy magic Batman training over the physics chiding him about gravity and mass and the amount of force a human skeleton can survive.

His heat is still beating a little too fast and the unease is still seeping through his circulatory system. The full on panic and spiral of obsessive thoughts have stopped now, at least, and it makes a difference. The fingers that have been tapping at a speed too fast for human vision still.

‘You sure about giving me all the glory?’ he forces himself to joke. It makes Dick frown, a little, and Wally remedies it with a thanks. ‘You’re right,’ he adds, mostly just to watch the self-satisfied and slightly smug smile creep up and attach itself to Dick’s lips. ‘No way are we getting taken down by some metal and gravity. We are way too awesome for that!’

He doesn’t believe a word he’s saying but they’re both smiling and nothing is on fire yet.

Yet.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Birdflash gathering place.
> 
> [cherryflamed](http://cherryflamed.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

"I can’t let you walk home alone like this,” Wally declares. “Allow me to accompany you on this dark and perilous road, milady,” He sweeps into a low and ridiculous bow.

 

Dick takes the opportunity to hit him in the back of the knees with his crutch. Wally collapses like the leaning tower of Pisa might if faced with a well-calculated flick of the fingers.

 

A pair of angry eyes glares up at him. It would be more intimidating if Wally’s too long fringe wasn’t obscuring most of his vision.

 

“Last time I try to be a gentleman,’ he mutters as he picks himself up.

 

“First time too,’ Dick quips, readjusting so that less weight is on his broken limb. Bruce has a thing with zeta tubes and not allowing them to be close to the Cave for safety purposes or, more likely, to fuel his paranoia. “Come on, you can redeem yourself.”

 

There’s a flurry of ginger motion in the corner of Dick’s eye and then a lurch, like the entire ground has decided to drop away below his feet and take a sick day. Only practice, mental calm and the hand over his mouth stop Dick from screeching.

 

“Was that necessary?” he asks whilst still in motion, certain that by the end of the sentence they will be situated in his room at the manor. He opens his eyes, maliciously licks Wally’s hand, and is correct. It’s a nice state to be in, broken leg aside.

 

“Yup,” Wally declares. He’s already fallen onto the four-poster Dick secretly adores. Body clouded by pillows, pulling himself up on his elbows to peer at Dick, his shirt pulled tight over skeletal shoulders: some parody of a modern Byron, Dick thinks absurdly. He’s clearly been reading too much romanticism if his brain voluntarily compares Wally and Byronesque imagery, even in jest. No, no, delete.

 

“Dude. You okay?” A pale hand (what might be a pale hand) waves itself in front of his face. It’s hard to concentrate on objects moving so quickly.

 

“Great.” Dick smiles, tosses the crutch and lets himself fall, trusting the bed to catch him. Or Wally, should the heaven on pillows and duvet decide to betray him.   

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have 400 words of plotlessness! Merry Christmas :)

**Author's Note:**

> Birdflash gathering place for my Tumblr prompts. 
> 
>  
> 
> [cherryflamed](http://cherryflamed.tumblr.com/)  
> 


End file.
